how do you remove a sponge?

[muse12]

I have a nice sized green stap poly colony and I just noticed a little piece of black sponge about the size of a quarter growing aver my colony! Will it take over? How do you remove a sponge?!? I hope that it will just die but I really dont think that will happen. [/img]

 

[XXFirefighter]

Well you can try to cut it and see what happens..
If I were you I would take this time to trim some of that polop off and stick it to powerheads or the back or sides of the tank and cut the sponge best you can...

 

[steve-s]

If the rock is small and easy to move, an effective method for removing the sponge would be to remove the rock and expose it to air for a few minutes. Sponges are quite delicate and when exposed to air the air gets trapped in the sponges tissues and it causes death from the necrosis. All you need do after that is blow off the decaying sponge to be sure the die off does not affect the GSP.

Be careful with "dip" applications, most colonial polyped corals do not take well to them.

Cheers
Steve